


la mer a bercé mon cœur pour la vie

by toadpuff



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Boat Sad (it's like regular sad but worse), Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-25
Packaged: 2019-07-15 02:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16053203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toadpuff/pseuds/toadpuff
Summary: the rest of them pick up on it pretty fast, for a bunch of assholes.





	1. arms spread wide on the starboard bow

Beau finds him first, which is only odd because he thought Jester might run his ass down immediately like she usually does after he gets knocked out. 

She sits down next to him where he's splayed out on the deck, too tired to even put his hands behind his head and cushion it from the wood beneath his skull. Caduceus healed them up nicely, but he's still sore. The blood crusted in his hair and on his face is making him itch.

“Hey, man.” she says, then exhales heavily. 

“Hey.”

“You're not all right, are you.” she non-asks. He can hear her fidgeting with something over the sounds of the ship moving through the water, and when he glances over, she's got the raggedy cut end of a piece of rope in her hands, unraveling it further with her blunt nails. She's not normally a fidgeter, her low-and-slow voice and the way her demeanor seems almost _lazy_ covering up the brutal economy of her body, of her brain. No energy wasted. But here she is, pulling the coarse threads apart a few at a time while she waits for him to answer.

“I'm fine.” he lies. She snorts when she laughs. “Peachy. Hunky-fuckin'-dory. I'm on the water for the first time in months, and I can't even enjoy it, 'cause--” He stops himself, suddenly embarrassed. He grunts, and knocks the back of his head against the deck gently enough that it might seem like a wave hit the ship the wrong way. “Stupid.”

“I gotcha.” she mutters. 

He flicks his eyes up to her face. She's focusing so hard on the rope that he knows she's avoiding his gaze. He doesn't like that, doesn't like Beau not confronting him on his bullshit, so he reaches back without sitting up and grabs the rope. She manages to jerk it out of his grasp the first time, but he gets ahold of it on the second try and tosses it off into the darkness down by his feet. 

She makes an indignant noise and flips him double birds, before leaning down slightly and hissing “We all screwed up, and we're all alive. Stop blaming yourself for this clusterfuck. We're all _alive_.”

“You first.” he snaps back. 

She stands up in one smooth movement and digs the toe of her soft boot into his armpit, making him yelp. “Don't be an asshole.” she says. “You're the only one here who knows how to keep us from becoming boat ghosts.”

“It's a ship.”

“Spooky boat phantoms, trapped on a haunted boat, doomed to poorly sail our dumb asses around for all eternity.” She trails the last word off with what she seems to think is a ghostly noise as she walks away from him. 

He can hear her climb back up to where he last saw Yasha inspecting the rigging, and just barely makes out Yasha's soft “Did he talk to you?”

Fjord remains laid out on the deck like a fish, fileted and salted and left to dry, staring up at the black sky with its mismatched moons and wisps of dark clouds and all those stars. He picks out constellations, planets, calculates trajectories and routes, navigates seven imaginary courses for them to take before the exhaustion hits him. He closes his eyes and lets the waves splashing up against the sides of the ship lull him to sleep.

*****

Jester does find him the next morning. He cracks one eye open to see laying on her stomach a couple of feet away from him, her bare feet kicked above her and crossed at the ankles, focused hard on drawing something in her journal with her head pillowed at the crook of her free arm. The sun hasn't risen yet, but he notices sky turning pink above them.

He turns onto his side and plants his elbow against the deck, resting his head on his hand. His back hurts from sleeping where he slept but his body feels less twisted up than it did the night before, even after the healing magic did its work. 

“Oh, no, Fjord, I was drawing you!” she stage-whispers, kicking her feet in annoyance but not raising her head. “Now how will I get the drool just right?”

“I don't drool.” Fjord lies, knowing perfectly well his regrowing tusks mean he slobbers like a bulldog when he sleeps. He instinctively reaches up toward them, but Jester blinks at him from beneath her bangs and he runs his hand through his hair instead, tugging his fingers through the dirty mop it became overnight. It's grown out a little since the last time he was on a ship, the short sides getting softer and the top dropping stray locks onto his forehead when he forgets to rub a bit of the fragrant oil and beeswax concoction he keeps in a little jar into it to keep it back. “I need a bath.”

Jester wrinkles her freckled nose. “You sure do.” she says, and laughs at the face he makes. Her feet sway back and forth, at odds with the motion of the ship, as she continues sketching. She licks her ring finger and rubs at part of the page before flipping over onto her back and holding the journal up to show him. “I was watching you sleep for a while, and going by the things you were mumbling, this is exactly what you were dreaming about.” she explains, pointing at the distressingly well-rendered portrait of him leaping out of the ocean, his body having turned into a dolphin from the navel down.

I LOVE BEING A MERMAID!!!!! is written in block letters right above his head. FISHBOY 4 LYFE is scrawled beneath the arc of his body. Little caricatures of the rest of the Nein sit on a rock that's jutting out of the sea, their hands on their faces and little hearts floating above their heads. 

Fjord is genuinely unsure what's going to come out of his mouth before he laughs despite himself, pressing his free hand down over his eyes. “Jester...wow.” is all he can say.

“Do you like it? I gave you like four more abs than you normally have.”

“It's certainly a flattering portrait.”

She tears the page out of her journal and pushes it over to him with a wink. “Don't tell the Traveller. This one is just for you.”

He takes it reluctantly, squinting at the piece of paper before folding it up and tucking it into a back pocket on his trousers. “I'll treasure it forever.”

“You better.” Jester warns, turning back over into the position he woke to see her in and starting on a new drawing. He watches her for a while as she sketches what he recognizes as Beau, balanced on Yasha's shoulders, trying to tempt an unwilling Professor Thaddeus out of a tree with a terrified-looking Nott. 

“Thank you for the drawing, Jester.” he says after a while, climbing to his feet. He does a quick scan of his surroundings, making sure nothing seems to be going wrong. They're on open ocean, no land visible, heading west. Yasha is against the mast on the forecastle, asleep sitting straight up with her arms folded. Fjord sees a little bit of blue fabric peeking out from the other side of Yasha, and knows Beau is curled up just close enough to feel safe. 

“You're welcome.” she answers, looking up at him. The sun's high enough that she has to shield her eyes when she does.

Fjord stretches his aching back and sighs. “Hey, you feel like learnin' how to sail?” he asks suddenly, almost before he can even think about what he's going to say.

“Not really!” Jester answers, very chipper. She slams her journal shut and tucks it and her pencil into her belt, standing up and stretching too. A devious little grin curls up one side of her mouth, revealing a tiny fang. “I'll watch you do it, though.”

“Oh my god. Forget it.” he says, turning briskly and walking toward the wheel, which is being managed quite deftly by a spectral hand.

“Oh, Oskar, let me see your muscles bulge as you grip some wood!” Jester calls after him, the balls of her feet slapping against the deck as she runs to catch up to him. “Oskar! Show me what you can do with all this rope!”

Fjord pretends to ignore her but lets her catch up to him and throw innuendo in his direction until Beau wakes up. Jester bounces off to harass her while she's still half-asleep, which is both the funniest but also most dangerous time to bug Beau. 

Their conversation after Beau's eyes manage to stay open for more than three seconds is a quieter and more serious than Fjord has ever seen Jester be, since—since the time she couldn't talk. Jester looks up at him from around the mast and Yasha's big shoulder once or twice, gracing him with a huge smile that noticeably doesn't push the worry out of her eyes.

*****

Nott sits on the steps behind him as he gets a feel for the way the _Mist_ handles on the currently-gentle sea. The sun is hot, coming down on his shoulders and the back of his neck like warm hands. He takes his armor off but keeps it nearby; he watches Nott fiddle with her ring and feels a kinship with her. He has no fear of the ocean. He does have a very valid fear of dying in it, considering it's happened to him before.

“Were you steering all night?” he asks.

Nott sighs. “Sometimes. Sometimes Caleb did it. He's so good at figuring out where we are. He found a sextant and found where the Swavain Islands were on one of the maps down below and got us scooting along in that direction.”

“He's certainly impressive.” Fjord answers. “You still all wobbly about being asea?”

“I never stopped wobbling. It's worse now actually. I'm literally wobbling.” 

Fjord then notices her boots are tucked behind the step under the one she's sitting on and her whole frame save her hands and head is braced tight against the rocking of the ship. She looks less green and more chartreuse, like her fear and her seasickness are battling for supremacy in her little body. The two-day-old seagull corpse she'd apparently been gnawing on, which now exists only as a sad, bloody pile of feathers on the step next to her, can't be helping the internal situation brewing.

“Did you ask Caduceus if he had any tea that might help you out?” Fjord asks, getting a feel for the ship and the way she likes to move. She's not exactly sleek, and not the prettiest ship he's ever seen, but she _is_ fast, and just big enough that she stays steady even when the wind kicks the waves up. Being able to cut through the water like air is a nice surprise after all his time spent on heavy cargo vessels. 

“He's been a little wobbly too. I don't wanna bother him. I know I hate it when people bother me while I'm feeling bad.”

Something light and teasing in her voice makes Fjord whip his head back to pretend-glare at her, and she's got all her pointy teeth out in a big grin. He shakes his head and turns back to the wheel. He just barely hears the rustle of cloth before she's at his side, steadying herself with one hand on the wood pylon holding up the wheel. She gulps down a long drink from her flask and offers it to him. He takes it and raises it to her, choking down a bit of whatever enchanted liquor lives inside the thing before he hands it back to her to hide away in the folds of her cloak again. She's sweating profusely now and doesn't seem to be feeling any better. 

“You know--” she begins shakily, swallowing something back. “--what happened—what happened to you and Jes and Yasha—what happened last night—wasn't on you. I wanna make sure you understand that.”

“Nott.”

Nott ignores him, talking faster so he can't say anything else, though he doesn't quite know what he'd say except to scoff. But this seems important to her, if her wide eyes and balled-up little fist mean anything. He lets her continue. 

“We're all adults, we all made decisions last night, and we made them as a team. Anything that went wrong, it's on all of us. But it's fine now.”

“ _Are_ you an adult, Nott?” Fjord asks, narrowing his eyes at her. 

The middle claw on her free hand goes up immediately. She's been spending too much time with Beau. “Just _listen_ , Fjord.” she says emphatically, eyes getting even bigger as what she says becomes more important to her. “You don't have to carry everything that happens to us around like a shitty weight on your back.”

Fjord sighs. “You know—you know how you feel about Caleb. About what happens to him.”

“That's different!”

“It's really not!” 

“Is too!”

“Is—no, I'm not getting into a little toddler fight with you about fuckin' personal responsibility.” Fjord peers at the sun, then adjusts the wheel a bit. Nott lets go of her support beam just long enough to cross her arms over her chest and lean back against the wood again, scowling. She's looking sicker by the second. “If you need to barf, do it over the side of the boat, and keep your eye on the horizon.” he advises.

“I don't need to...” She trails off with a weird expression. Fjord's salivary glands start sympathetically flooding his mouth with spit like he's the one about to lose it. He watches with sympathy as Nott runs to the handrail and vomits into the ocean, lingering there with a miserable moan. She trudges back to him eventually. He hands her his water skin and a small tin of strong lozenges from his pack. She swishes first with water, then with booze, and pops a lozenge into her mouth with a grimace. “Thanks.”

Fjord gestures with the tin. “These might help with the ralphing, too.”

She doesn't look much better now that she's got it all out. He watches her slump back down to sit on the bottom step and waits until her eyes close reluctantly but with a finality of long-needed sleep to pick her up and put her under the steps, in the relative shade where it's a bit cooler. He glances up, sees Caleb watching him from the quarterdeck, and returns the small nod Caleb gives him with a halfassed salute.


	2. gonna fly this boat to the moon somehow

An examination of the ship reveals it to be well-stocked for one that just came to shore, and Fjord imagines the crew wasn't planning on staying in Nicodranas long before heading back out. There are enough provisions for eight people plus one weasel that it's one less thing for him to worry about for the day, but he does take a little while to show Beau and Nott how to fashion crude nets with the available rope. He leaves them to the weaving after he's confident they know what they're doing. They're both smart enough, with nimble enough fingers, that their nets quickly reveal themselves to be finer and sturdier than his are. 

Caleb sits up on the bow into the late afternoon, surrounded by stacks of papers, ledgers, and maps he's taken from below deck and with his hand pressed to the side of a large metal pot with the lid placed upside-down on top of it. His coat is pulled over his head like a shroud against the sun, and he's so still that Fjord thinks he might be asleep sitting up before Fjord's shadow falling over his papers makes him look up. He nods in greeting and goes back to flipping through a ledger in his lap, grabbing for a loose map with one hand to make some sort of cross-reference. The pot is half-full of boiling water with a big glass jar inside, condensation dripping from the upside-down lid into the jar, which makes Fjord realize that Caleb is boiling the water with his hand.

“Neat trick.” he says, leaning against the mast behind him.

“It's not a trick,” Caleb answers shortly, engrossed in his map and his book. 

“Fair enough. Are you doing okay?”

“I'm doing fine. Are you?” 

“Just grand.” Fjord answers, sliding against the mast to sit on the floor with a grunt. He's already exhausted and his body's having to acclimatize itself to sailing again. Caleb pulls the collar of the coat aside to frown at him for a second, then lets it fall back into place, covering his face. He turns a page. 

“I am not the best at reading people anymore, but I know you're lying.” Caleb tells him slowly, as if he's concerned about overstepping his bounds. The idea of this group having any kind of boundaries with each other after everything they've been through together is ludicrous enough to make him laugh, which Caleb answers with an annoyed huff. “I was just trying to talk to you if you wanted, but if you don't, I'm sure there's work to be done elsewhere.”

Fjord recognizes by the snippy tone that he may have hurt Caleb's feelings. “I'm sorry.” he says sincerely. “This has been a weird twenty-four hours for all of us. I'm not handling it as well as I'd like, if you want the truth.”

“But you are trying to keep it together for our sakes.” Caleb answers with a sarcasm Fjord isn't used to hearing directed at him. “I understand. If you want to talk to me, I am here. If you want to talk at me, that's even better, because I can keep reading.”

Fjord laughs again, a little less ragged than the last one. “What are you reading?”

“Comparing their routes to the captain's log. Trying to find out what they did and where. Nott helped me interpret their code this morning so I've been able to get through a good portion of the ledgers and logs.” He pushes the ledger off his lap toward Fjord and drops his finger on the middle of one page. He leaves a smudge of ash on the book that Fjord realizes with a start must be from how his hands caught themselves alight last night and sent the fireball at the ship. He wonders what Caleb's hands look like under the sooty, dirty bandages after he casts, and then thinks maybe he doesn't want to know. 

The page Caleb is showing him is indeed in a code he doesn't understand, but Caleb says “They mention Captain Evantica multiple times in the latest entries.” Caleb puts a second book on top of the log, opening it to the correct page without even looking at the book itself. “And, relevant to you, the name Sabien comes up multiple times before that.”

“Does it say they're connected somehow?” Fjord asks stiffly, blood icy like it always is when he thinks of Sabien. He's heard the stereotypes and insults, how Orcs and their half-breed offspring run hot and are quicker to anger than rabid beasts, but his fury makes him cold as the sea where the light doesn't touch. 

He remembers a time where he wasn't like that, before he went into the water.

“Maybe.” Caleb answers, but shakes his head. “This captain wasn't a fool. Everything he wrote was coded and the information itself would make sense to very few people. Trying to destroy the paperwork wouldn't have been necessary if we were anyone else.” The pride in Caleb's voice is tinged curiously bitter to Fjord's ears.

Fjord claps him on the shoulder and stands back up. “You're doing a great job.” he says, in his best encouraging Vandren voice.

“I'm serious, Fjord.” Caleb says, pulling the books back onto his lap. “You've been—traumatized. If you need to...process it by talking, you can.” he offers, unsure. He turns a page. 

“Thank you.” Fjord answers. It hangs in silence for a while before Fjord climbs down to the main deck and goes back to the wheel, glad to be away from what he thinks might be pity, if it had come from anyone else.

*****

Dinner that night is oatmeal with cinnamon and cardamom and dried dates, with sides of salted pork for everyone but Caduceus, who abstains from the meat, and Caleb, who gives his ration of pork to Nott in exchange for her unwanted dates. They all eat quietly by lanternlight, Marius still tied to the mast but with less violence now that they're out at sea and he wouldn't be able to jump ship without dooming himself.

“Well done, Caduceus.” Fjord says. He's honestly never had more flavorful food on a ship.

“Did you use the dust you bought in Zadash?” Jester asks through a mouthful of pork.

“Didn't even need it.” Caduceus says with a grin. 

As the meal winds down, Caduceus gathers up empty dishes. He scrapes the food scraps off the side of the boat and turns around, then stops. He looks at Fjord. “Uh.” he says, gesturing slowly with the handful of plates. “Do we just throw them into the ocean and find more, or...” he asks.

Fjord snorts and gets to his feet. “Nah. I'll clean them up.” he says, taking the stack. Caduceus follows him down into the galley below deck, ducking to avoid the doorways and ceilings meant for much shorter folks, and lets his staff rest in the corner. He indicates that he wants to help, so Fjord makes some room for him at a split basin he fills with fresh water and detergent and passes him the scrubbed and rinsed dishes to dry. Every time the ship rocks against a wave, Fjord can sense a minute flinch that seems at extreme odds with how calm Caduceus is. 

Before Fjord can say anything, Caduceus says “Everything that seemed to go wrong last night reminded you of the last time everything went wrong, didn't it?” 

“Deuces, I've had this conversation a hundred and fifty times in the last day.” Fjord answers.

Caduceus shakes his head, pink hair floating above Fjord like a cloud of spun sugar. “If you'd had this conversation, _truly_ had this conversation, you wouldn't still be coiled up and twisting in your own body like a dying snake.”

Fjord can't argue without either showing Caduceus he's right or sounding like an idiot, so he grabs the basin of dirty water and goes back up to the deck, dumping it over the railing and rinsing it out with some more of the fresh water before taking it back down to the galley. Caduceus is still there, waiting patiently for him with an easy, warm smile on his face. Fjord presses his knuckles into his eye sockets, suddenly even more tired than before. “I'm sorry.” he says.

Caduceus keeps smiling at him. “You're not. But you don't have to be.”

“I don't know what you want me to say.”

Caduceus shrugs at that. “You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. But if you do, we're all listening.”

“Wow. That's humiliating.” 

Caduceus gives him a gravelly chuckle. “I think I'm learning that's what friends are for.” he says.

*****

Fjord hears a commotion the next morning while he's going over some maps with Caleb and Nott. “What are you _doing_?” he yells across the ship as he runs toward the noise.

Beau has ahold of one of Jester's ankles and Yasha has the other, and together they've lowered her upside-down over the railing at the stern. Fjord looks down and sees her dangling there, a brush and paint pot clutched in each hand and her skirt tied in a knot between her legs to keep it from falling down into her face. He watches as she continues laughing so hard it makes Beau start also laughing so hard that she almost loses her grip on Jester.

“Did you finish it?” Yasha asks, and Jester just gives her a thumb's up because she can't talk. Yasha and Beau pull her back up, and the two smaller women fall onto the deck, still giggling. 

“We were—we were going to change the name, because the _Mist_ is so boring--” Jester begins.

“--And Jester changed it--” Beau continues.

“But then I painted a dick, you know, for fun? But I did it in the wrong spot.” Jester's eyes are wet and scrunched up tight and Beau is on her side, clutching her stomach and just making weird honking noises at this point.

Yasha sits on the railing, kicking both feet over and dropping, catching herself with one hand. She reads the back of the ship and the most minute smile of all time. Caleb and Nott and Caduceus have meandered over to see what all the fuss is about.

Yasha pulls herself back up easily, her head shaking in gentle amusement. Caleb and Nott, disinterested in the distraction by now, go back to the maps. Caduceus tries to help Beau and Jester to their feet, but they're still laughing too hard for any higher brain functions to be taking place. He eventually just lays down on the deck with them, which makes Jester laugh even harder and roll over into his side to push her face into his hairy shoulder, which seems to delight Caduceus.

Fjord watches Yasha watch them with a fondness. She looks over to him suddenly, mismatched eyes studying him for a second before she rests her elbows on the railing, glancing down at the wood to the left of her like someone else might extend an arm for Fjord to join them. He does, mimicking her position and staring out toward the horizon. He can just barely see the mountainous peaks of the Swavain Islands in the distance, right where he and Caleb determined they'd be. 

Yasha's silence is companionable, which he assumes is her version of a deep late-night conversation with a trusted loved one on the interpersonal relationship scale. Their shared horror, hers even more brutal than his, hangs over them. It's not as fraught as he thought it would be, considering. He thinks of it as a blanket they're both wrapped in, and Jester, too. Their friends have the edges clutched in their fists, and nobody really knows what to do about it, but it isn't killing them yet. It'll come off eventually. Yasha taps the railing with one hand, squeezes Fjord's forearm with the other, and leaves his side to join the others. Fjord stays at the railing, watching the islands until his eyes start to water before closing them against the unforgiving sun.

The _Dick Mistake_ continues her journey across the calming sea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! the kind response is worth the terrible 4 minutes i spent looking at everyone's spell lists and being annoyed that lesser restoration sounds like it should be able to wash some dishes but CAN'T. the vague ship nonsense is based on a caravel since that's the closest to what i imagine their ship being like. also i know a little bit about historical sailing but not enough to maintain a whole story, however d&d has dragons in it, so please don't correct me. I'm Great At Boats.


End file.
